re:Virals 495
Welcome to re:Virals, The Haiku Foundation’s weekly commentary feature on some of your favorites among the best contemporary haiku and senryu written in English, hosted by Keith Evetts (managing editor) and Melissa Dennison. In the seat today is Melissa. This week’s poem, chosen by Vidya Premkumar was:
December wind through the kitchen door my mother motherless —Antoinette Cheung, Canada #FemkuMag 38: Spring 2025
Introducing this poem, Vidya writes:
Antoinette Cheung’s haiku poignantly captures the universal and inevitable paradox of ageing—where even those who have always been our source of comfort and nurturing, like our mothers, must grapple with their vulnerabilities. The phrase “my mother motherless” lays bare the stark reality that our parents, too, experience loss and longing. This line reflects the heartrending truth that, at some point, everyone becomes or is destined to become an orphan as the natural cycle of life progresses. This progression often goes unnoticed as we become absorbed in our adult roles and perhaps as caretakers of our children or ageing parents.
In the hustle of fulfilling these responsibilities, we sometimes forget that we, too, still need the emotional comfort provided by our parents. The haiku gently evokes this necessity. This reminder is accentuated by a brisk December wind, symbolically cutting through the cosy atmosphere of a family setting, like the kitchen, which is often linked to maternal warmth and sustenance. It’s a striking contrast: the kitchen, a place full of care and life, encounters the chilling wind, representing the unyielding progression of time and the associated losses. This haiku, in its subtle and introspective manner, highlights the common vulnerability across generations, reminding us of our mutual human need for solace as we and our parents face the intricacies of life and loss.
I hope this poem brings a lot of discussion on our humanity and vulnerability.
Opening comment (Melissa):
This poem resonates with me on many levels. In particular, I am the daughter of an ageing mother. One day I too will be encountering this cold December wind. It’s an interesting choice isn’t it – December wind, as this month is not only cold but it is also dark and one of the bleakest of the year in the northern hemisphere. It’s the time of year when the nights are long and signs of life are hard to find. Losing a parent, in this case a mother must feel a lot like an endless night, which makes this poem both powerful and eloquent. One of the biggest struggles in life is losing our parents. It is hard watching someone who has always seemed strong slowly begin to decline and disappear. However, Antoinette’s words about this loss have other layers – as there is someone else here, observing this moment of grief through the kitchen door. There is also a realisation on the part of the observer, which feels to me like an epiphany or a moment of clarity. Their mother, who they have relied on for emotional support is at this moment vulnerable, she too needs someone for support. This is a pivotal moment in the relationship between mother and child, when the former is seen for who she really is – a frail human.
Moreover, the observer has lost a significant actor in their life too – their grandmother. I recall losing mine, twenty years ago now. I think of her often, her photograph smiles at me from a shelf in the front room, and I have one or two ornaments she bought me, as well as the lucky charms she always carried in her purse. She was always superstitious.
Our relationships with our grandmothers can be very special and unique. Whenever I visited my grandparents there would be a bowl of my favourite sweets – chocolate eclairs bought from the local market waiting, and she would make my favourite sauce for tea. It was International Women’s Day recently, and this poem got me thinking about the role and value of older women in our society. It is fair to say that older women have not and possibly still aren’t always valued, experiencing prejudice and inequality, take for instance the concepts of the witch, the hag and the crone. And yet, older women still have so much to give, and play significant roles in our lives, as Antoinette’s words indicate.
Colleen Farrelly:
I love the movement in this piece. A gentle breeze through the screen door somewhere in Bimini or Eleuthera with a mother and child baking dinner after Grandma’s wake.
The wind going through a door suggests a transition, and the winter month suggests the coming of a new year and new chapter in life while looking back at the past memories.
The wind also hints at thoughts passing in the mother’s mind–memories of her mother in that very house, perhaps.
The interplay of movement and generational time ties this poem together nicely!
Daniel McKinley:
1) December wind– chilling winter wind out of the North? Seasonal tone is somber; most vegetation has died.
2) through the kitchen door– forceful wind blows open the door
or mother is bursting through kitchen door with chilling bad news.
3) my mother motherless– Three generations: son or daughter; mother; and deceased grandmother. Alliteration, a stuttering of m…m…m; announcing with difficulty that mother has died — probably unexpectedly.
There is everything to admire about this haiku: the season word that compounds the impact of news of a death; the double meaning of “through the kitchen door”; the notion of three generations with the alliteration of the letter ‘M,” that by itself could represent mother. In my mind the speaker “my” is a daughter. There is an economy in the construction of this haiku that for me, converts the daughter’s personal loss appealing to the reader for sympathy, to the observer, grand daughter, one generation removed, whose appeal might be more empathic. I also personally witnessed a dying person talking about passing through a door; that thought just came to me.
Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:
Antoinette Cheung stirs a host of poignant memories. That of a young expectant mother yearning for the warmth of her mother’s company when caught in the gushing, freezing wind of December as the kitchen door opens. The poet paints the picture of sympathy for an observant daughter feeling concerned for her motherless mother. A poem of moving imagery !
Sudha Devi Nayak:
The haiku is possibly an agonising memory of the painful migrant experience of a child away from her mother home and hearth on alien shores in unfamiliar circumstances. In poverty even in degradation without a proper habitation letting in the chill December wind through the kitchen door reminds her of her motherlessness, the warmth and comfort her mother had always brought.
The chill hurts her just as the poignancy of the lines in the haiku hurt the reader. The image of the young vulnerable child cringing shivering in the bitter cold without the safety of home and family is one of utter heart-rending loneliness that haunts us long after reading the poem.
The first two lines give us the bleak setting of the chill wind and a ramshackle door and the last a defenceless child unable to cope with the present consumed by memories of an absent mother who spelt warmth and love and a kitchen which was probably her favourite terrain.
Amoolya Kamalnath – the importance of older women :
The repetition of the word ‘mother’ here enhances the poignancy of the verse.
It’s as if the chill which arrived as a guest through the kitchen door, took away the narrator’s grandmother, if they were staying in the same house. Or could it have been that the cold wind brought her a message about her grandmother (may be on a phone call). Maybe she got to know of her gran’s passing and so she felt the air to be colder.
In spite of being an adult and a mother herself, the ku very well depicts how the mother is feeling, motherless. She still feels she needs her mother and can’t live without her. How cruel the December wind must be to rob her of her mother! But what about the granddaughter. She too has lost her ‘friend’ (usually grandchildren are very close to and are very fond of their grandparents). She’s been snatched away so suddenly.
The poet hasn’t been explicit with her emotions in this short poem but has brought out the sorrow in a very effective manner.
Reflecting on this poemlet, I was definitely reminded of my mother’s mother whom I was very fond of. And she left this world just after three months after I conceived.
Antoinette Cheung:
Many of the vivid memories I have from childhood centre around the home, and in particular, the kitchen where members of my multigenerational family would gather. I would often come home from school to find my grandma standing by the kitchen sink, reading a newspaper under a patch of afternoon light. We always entered and exited the house through the kitchen door; the front door was reserved for guests. If one of us brought a friend home via the kitchen door, that was something meaningful – we would know that the relationship with this person was special.
In December 2021, I lost my grandma to COVID-19. This loss shook and shattered my foundation. Haiku became a haven, and the poem featured here is one of many that I have written to memorialize my grandma. My mother coming home without my grandma is a moment that remains haunting to me. But I’d like to believe that the December wind drifting in beside her carried the presence of my grandma, also coming home through that kitchen door.
Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Amoolya Kamalnath has chosen next week’s poem, which you’ll find below. We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be short, or of moderate length, academic, your personal response, spontaneous, or idiosyncratic. As long as it focuses on the verse presented, and with respect for the poet, all genuine reader reaction, criticism, and pertinent discussion is of value. Out-takes are kept in the THF Archives. Best of all, the chosen commentary’s author gets to pick the next poem.
Anyone can participate. Simply use the re:Virals commentary form below to enter your commentary on the new week’s poem (“Your text”) by the following Tuesday midnight, Eastern US Time Zone, and then press Submit to send your entry. The Submit button will not be available until Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in. We look forward to seeing your commentary and finding out about your favourite poems.
Poem for commentary:
show & tell...
a handful of coins
from his homeland
— Barrie Levine
Golden Haiku 2025
Washington Golden Triangle
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Footnote:
Antoinette Cheung is currently co-editor for the journals Prune Juice and confluence, which celebrate the art of Japanese short-form poetry within a contemporary English-language context. She also serves as coordinator of the Haiku Social Club to provide a space for poets aged 40 and under to connect and share their work.
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Received after the deadline from Adelaide B. Shaw:
“We owe our existence to both our parents, but perhaps we become more attached to our mothers . They are the ones who nurse us, feed us and usually spend more time with us A child, regardless the age of that child. keenly feels the loss of his or her mother. In this haiku, the poet shows this through the setting, a cold kitchen. A kitchen is the heart of a home. It is where the family gathers and meals are cooked. It generally is the mother’s domain. It is a place of warmth. But in this kitchen the poet writes about there is no warmth, literally because of the cold wind and figuratively because the grandmother has passed on, leaving the mother of the house feeling the loss. Perhaps, the grandmother lived there and shared with the cooking, which wasn’t a chore but a joyful experience. The loss and sadness is doubly felt because of the closeness they shared.”
Received after the deadline from Lakshman Bulusu:
“This seasonal haiku emphasizes on the chill winter wind in December blowing through the kitchen door being very cold and making it almost impossible to a mother to cook. The mother is in the kitchen cooking and the kitchen is suddenly so cold that the “mother has become motherless” and “unable to be a host to a host of worlds” which she is otherwise.
The haikuist so poignantly captures the scene (kitchen and mother) which has now become “unseen – kitchen and motherless”.
The December chill paired with mother in the kitchen is now seems like a vacuum with no mother, when seen from the practical, psychological, or metaphorical point of view.”
